


is hard understanding why i'm incomplete?

by Analyse (D_Willims)



Series: it'll still be two days till we say we're sorry [12]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Hargreeves is Also Bad at Feelings, But She's Giving This Therapy Thing a Shot, Diego Hargreeves is Bad at Feelings, Gen, He Loves His Sisters Though, I Heard A Rumor There's No Incest, Missing Scene? Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 13:51:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Willims/pseuds/Analyse
Summary: Sometimes expressing concern looks like making your sister cry or punching your brother in the face.





	is hard understanding why i'm incomplete?

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from "Famous Last Words" by My Chemical Romance.
> 
> Series title from "One Week" by the Bare Naked Ladies.

“Let her go.”

Diego watches the long line of Allison’s back. Poised, perfect posture as always. She hesitates for just a moment. Rocks forward onto the ball of her foot. To take that step she’s never taken for any of them. And then she rocks back onto her heel, turns toward him.

Her gaze meets his and it’s _sharp_. Almost painful to even keep looking at her. Like hot knives that slice right through to the core of him. Dad did that to her, made her this. A monster capable of disarticulating a man with a look, a few sweet whispers. Diego _knows_ that it’s not Allison, not really. That it’s all Dad’s fault.

It changes nothing.

His lower lip trembles and he sucks it in. Bite down hard until he can taste blood. Keeps himself from spilling all his secrets. What he did to Mom, how sorry he is about Vanya, the fucking terror that seizes in his chest every time…

“She’s crying.” Allison crosses the distance between them in a few quick strides. Sits down on the couch next to him. “You didn’t have to be so mean about it.”

Diego releases the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It comes out as a harsh bark of laughter. That’s _rich_. Allison, the bitch herself, lecturing him on being mean. As if she hadn’t made Vanya cry, hadn’t made all of them cry a hundred times, a thousand times.

“You know I’m right,” Diego snaps back. He tries to move his head away when Allison takes the damp rag from his fingers and starts to clean his face. But it throbs and he has to hold still again to keep from puking on her.

Or maybe the queasiness is from that moment. Coming around the corner and seeing Allison down, spread out across the table. In the dark, he could mistake the mass of dark curls for blood. And with her left arm tucked up under her like that… It had all been too familiar. Too sickeningly familiar.

Allison doesn’t answer but her gaze doesn’t meet his anymore. She’s focused intensely on cleaning blood off his face. There’s blood welling up in the split of her lip, too. And Diego reaches out to wipe it off with the pads of his fingers. Lets his hand fall to her left bicep, leaving faint and bloodied fingerprints on the leather jacket. On what’s left of _her_ arm.

He’s quieter when he repeats himself, “You know I’m right. She’s a liability.”

There’s another moment when she says nothing. The rag falls from her fingers, but neither of them reacts. They meet each other’s gaze again, as Allison lets her fingers drift. From the scrape on the side of his head to the start of the scar. She follows the line up over his ear and they just sit for a moment. Just sit and stare and hardly dare to breathe.

She releases her breath first because she _must_. It’s like a spell is broken. And then she drops her gaze to his fingers on her arm. Diego drops his hand. Too quickly like the scar can burn him right through the leather jacket. Allison is slower to withdraw her hand.

“We’re dead, anyway,” she says. And, in a way, she sounds _relieved._ “That’s it. No more last-minute serums, no more science experiments. The only thing left is to wait it out.”

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t turn out like Luther?” A hint of a smirk plays on his lips. He doesn’t know why it struck him as funny because it mostly certainly _wasn’t_. But there was something there. Either one of them could’ve woken up like that, and instead it was golden boy Luther. Who never let his guard down, who never turned his back, who never got cocky. Never got captured or shot in the head.

If there’s any actual humor in the thought, Allison doesn’t see it. Instead, she inhales sharply. Rises to her feet. He gets up, too, automatically. Doesn’t let her have the high ground.

“That’s cruel, Diego.”

“Hey! I’m not the one that turned him into a monster. I’m not the one that abandoned him, made him Dad’s science experiment. And I’m not the one that made him stay—”

Her fist collides with his cheek. So hard he thinks he tastes blood. Allison always did have a _killer_ left hook, even if the arm wasn’t technically hers anymore.

“Did I strike a nerve?” Diego snaps his head back, smirk firmly in place again. He drops into a fight stance, readies himself. _This_ is the Allison he knows. The Number Three who he fought beside for so long and so hard. “Face it, Allison, all the therapy in the world can’t change what you did. You are who Dad made you. And you _wrecked_ Luther.”

She’d wrecked all of them in one way or another.

Allison opens her mouth, “I heard a rumor…” and then snaps her teeth shut. Stops herself. Like she’s really changed, under all that glitz and glamour, all that poise. Like she isn’t the same dirty fighter she’s always been.

“Go on, say it,” he challenges, teeth bared. “You know you want to. I dare you.”

Defiance flashes in her eyes. “I heard a rumor,” she starts again. Stops, softens. “That you took a walk, cooled off.”


End file.
